Krishna is continuing the tradition of Indians in high office messing up the country’s China policy.

Why Single Out Myanmar for Sanctions?

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

International Herald Tribune, November 18, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/opinion/18iht-edchellaney.html?ref=global

NEW DELHI — With the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from prolonged house detention, it is time for the United States and its European partners to moderate their sanctions policy against Myanmar (Burma) so as to create incentives for greater political openness and to insulate its citizens from the rigors of the punitive actions.

There is no reason why a weak, impoverished Myanmar should continue to be held to a higher human-rights standard than an increasingly assertive China. Why deny Myanmar the international-trade opportunities that have allowed the world’s biggest executioner, China, to prosper?

The defining events that led to the crushing of pro-democracy forces in Myanmar and China actually occurred around the same time more than two decades ago, yet the West responded to the developments in the two countries in very different ways.

China’s spectacular economic rise owes a lot to the Western decision not to sustain trade sanctions after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protestors. The Cold War’s end facilitated Washington’s pragmatic approach to shun trade sanctions and help integrate China with global institutions through the liberalizing influence of foreign investment and trade.

That the choice made was wise can be seen from the baneful impact of the opposite decision in favor of sustained sanctions against Myanmar, which brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrators 10 months before Tiananmen Square and subsequently refused to honor the outcome of a national election in 1990. Had the Myanmar-type approach of escalating sanctions been applied against China internationally, the result would have been a less prosperous and a potentially destabilizing China today.

By contrast, the continuation of sanctions and their subsequent expansion against Myanmar snuffed out any prospect of that country emulating China’s example of blending economic openness with political authoritarianism. Indeed, the military’s attempts to open up the Myanmar economy in the early 1990s fizzled out quickly in the face of Western penal actions.

Today, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi offers the U.S. and Europe an opportunity to recalibrate the sanctions policy by drawing on the lessons of the past two decades.

The first lesson is that the economic sanctions, even if justified, have produced the wrong political results. Years of sanctions have left Myanmar without an entrepreneurial class or civil society and saddled with an all-powerful military as the sole functioning institution.

A second lesson is that the expansion of sanctions has not only further isolated Myanmar, but also made that country overly dependent on China, to the concern of the nationalistic Myanmar military. At a time when the United States is courting Communist-ruled Vietnam as part of its “hedge” strategy against a resurgent China, it makes little sense to continue with an approach that is pushing a strategically located Myanmar into China’s strategic lap.

Yet another lesson is that the sanctions have hurt not their intended target — the military — but ordinary citizens. By cutting off investment and squeezing vital sectors of the Myanmar economy, from tourism to textiles, the sanctions have lowered the living conditions of the Burmese and shut out liberalizing influences.

The blunt fact is that after being in power for nearly half a century, the military has become too fat to return to the barracks. In fact, it won’t fit in the barracks.

With no hope of a “color revolution” in Myanmar, demilitarization of the polity can at best be a step-by-step process. In that context, the recent elections, although far from being free or fair, have helped revive a long-dormant political process, given birth to new political players and institutions (including a bicameral national Parliament, 14 regional parliaments and the impending appointment of a president and civilian federal government), and implicitly created a feeling of empowerment among the people.

With the military now in the throes of a generational change, the revived political process has created new space for the democracy movement, as symbolized by Aung San Suu Kyi’s release. But with the opposition badly splintered and the military’s grip on power firm as ever, Aung San Suu Kyi cannot bring about tangible democratic reforms without building bridges with the armed forces.

Now is the time, with Myanmar in transition, for the United States and its allies to get out of a self-perpetuating cycle of sanctions and help carve out greater international space in that nation. Each step toward greater political openness in Myanmar ought to be suitably rewarded.

More broadly, democracy promotion should not become a geopolitical tool wielded only against the weak and the marginalized.

Going after the small kids on the global block but courting the most-powerful autocrats is hardly the way to build international norms or ensure positive results.

An uncompromisingly penal approach against Myanmar has had the perverse effect of weakening America’s hand while strengthening China’s. This was best illustrated during the Bush administration, which, after slapping the harshest sanctions on Myanmar, turned to Beijing as a channel of communication with the Burmese junta.

President Barack Obama began on the right note by exploring the prospect of a gradual reengagement with Myanmar. Yet on his recent visit to India, Obama attacked Myanmar three times, reflecting his frustration with the painfully slow movement to create a democratic opening in that nation.

Despite Aung San Suu Kyi’s release, the seeds of democracy will not take root in a stunted economy. External penal actions without constructive engagement and civil-society development in a critically weak country defeat their very purpose.

Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, is the author, most recently, of “Asian Juggernaut.”

Obama will take more than give

Brahma Chellaney

The Economic Times, November 4, 2010

U.S. President Barack Obama comes to India when his presidency has been considerably dented by the mid-term election drubbing, with the poll losses in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida likely to encumber his 2012 re-election bid. The president who harped on being transformational has been delivered a no-confidence in his own leadership by the voters.

It is remarkable that just a year ago, Obama was riding high, having unexpectedly won the Nobel prize for peace — a cause for which he has little to show up to now. A year, obviously, is a very long time in politics.

Obama’s Democratic Party lost the House of Representatives to the Republicans, while its razor-thin edge in the 100-seat Senate offers little consolation. It takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate. The Democrats’ continued control of the Senate thus is nominal. In effect, they stand kicked out of power.

Obama came to office with tremendous international goodwill. Yet, saddled with problems of historic proportion, he had little time to savour his epochal victory against rival John McCain. After all, he inherited national and global challenges more formidable than any faced by an American president at the beginning of the term. With the U.S. economic recession threatening to become a depression and two overseas wars raging, Obama had his work clearly cut out for him.

Now, midway through his term, these election losses ensure his hands will be full for the rest of his term. First, the high unemployment, growing U.S. debt and other economic problems that contributed to the poll reverses will preoccupy his presidency, especially if he hopes to be re-elected. That means he will shift to a more domestically focused agenda than before, with his international diplomacy geared towards trade deals to boost job and wealth creation at home. Second, he is likely to get tied down by the legislative actions and investigations of a Republican-influenced Congress, with a resurgent Tea party movement likely to target him increasingly.

That, plus an American public weary of the war, makes certain that Obama will start pulling U.S. forces out of Afghanistan before the job is done, leaving India on the front lines to face the brunt of greater terrorism from the Af-Pak belt. In fact, the recent unveiling of a new $2.3-billion U.S. aid package for the Pakistani military, along with the continued sale of offensive weapon systems, can only embolden an institution that is at the root of Pakistan’s problems and regional instability.

The good news on the U.S.-India front is that a weakened Obama presidency will do little to change the dynamics of a relationship whose direction is clearly set — towards closer engagement. The not-so-good news is that having given short shrift to some of India’s concerns in the first 22 months of his presidency on the pressing issues of counterterrorism and the scofflaw roles of the Pakistani army and ISI, Obama will have lesser leeway to accommodate India’s interests in his regional strategy, pivoted on extricating the U.S. from Afghanistan with the aid of the Pakistani military.

The president, pushed by the election setbacks, is likely to focus his India visit on promoting U.S. commercial interests, including job creation back home. That means he will crave for more contracts, especially high-visibility multibillion-dollar arms deals.

From Washington’s perspective, the billions of dollars worth of arms the Obama administration already has contracted to sell India since last year symbolize the new Indo-U.S. partnership. Closer military-to-military ties and defence transactions are part of the vaunted strategic partnership. Yet, India ought to be concerned about its growing reliance on the U.S. for weapons and their replacement parts, given that Washington is selling arms on both sides of the subcontinental divide.

During the second half of the Cold War, India relied on the Soviet Union for weapons. Now, New Delhi has begun to switch its dependency to the U.S., which has quietly emerged in recent years through government-to-government deals as the single largest seller of arms to India. Embarrassingly, India today stands out in the world as the only large nation dependent on imports to meet even basic defence needs.

Overall, the U.S. and India have never been closer than they are now, with their relationship set to deepen in spite of the policy differences on regional issues. Still, one should realistically expect more “take” than “give” from this presidential visit.

(c) The Economic Times.

Japan may have created the impression of having buckled under China’s pressure by releasing the Chinese fishing trawler captain. But the Japanese action helps move the spotlight back to China, whose rapid accumulation of power has emboldened it to aggressively assert territorial and maritime claims against its neighbors, from Japan to India.

Having earlier preached the gospel of its "peaceful rise," China is no longer shy about showcasing its military capabilities and asserting itself on multiple fronts. While the Chinese leadership may gloat after forcing Tokyo to climb down and release the captain, the episode — far from shifting the Asian balance of power in Beijing’s favor — has only shown that China is at the center of Asia’s political divides.

China’s new stridency in its territorial and maritime disputes with its neighbors has helped highlight Asia’s central challenge to come to terms with existing boundaries by getting rid of the baggage of history that weighs down a number of interstate relationships. Even as Asia is becoming more interdependent economically, it is becoming more divided politically.

While the bloody wars in the first half of the 20th century have made war unthinkable today in Europe, wars in Asia during the second half of the 20th century did not resolve matters and have only accentuated bitter rivalries. A number of interstate wars have been fought in Asia since 1950, the year both the Korean War and the annexation of Tibet started. Those wars, far from settling or ending disputes, have only kept disputes lingering.

China, significantly, has been involved in the largest number of military conflicts. A recent Pentagon report has cited examples of how China carried out military preemption in 1950, 1962, 1969 and 1979 in the name of strategic defense. The report states: "The history of modern Chinese warfare provides numerous case studies in which China’s leaders have claimed military preemption as a strategically defensive act.

For example, China refers to its intervention in the Korean War (1950-1953) as the "War to Resist the United States and Aid Korea." Similarly, authoritative texts refer to border conflicts against India (1962), the Soviet Union (1969) and Vietnam (1979) as "self-defense counterattacks." The seizure of Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974 by Chinese forces was another example of offense as defense.

All these cases of preemption occurred when China was weak, poor and internally torn. So today, China’s growing power naturally raises legitimate concerns. A stronger, more prosperous China is already beginning to pursue a more muscular foreign policy vis-a-vis its neighbors, as underscored by several developments this year alone — from its inclusion of the South China Sea in its "core" national interests, an action that makes its claims to the disputed Spratly Islands nonnegotiable, to its reference to the Yellow Sea as a sort of exclusive Chinese military-operations zone where the U.S. and South Korea should discontinue holding joint naval exercises.

China also has become more insistent in pressing its territorial claims to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, with Chinese warships making more frequent forays into Japanese waters.

As if to signal that it is acquiring the military power to enforce its claims, China has since April conducted large-scale naval exercises, first near Japan’s Ryukyu Islands chain — with a Chinese helicopter buzzing a Japanese destroyer — then in the East China Sea and, most recently, in the Yellow Sea.

In Tibet, the official PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Daily has reported several new significant military developments in recent months, including the first-ever major parachute exercise to demonstrate a capability to rapidly insert troops on the world’s highest plateau and an exercise involving "third generation" fighter-jets carrying live ammunition.

In addition, the railroad to Tibet, the world’s highest elevated railway, has now started being used to supply "combat readiness materials for the air force" there. These military developments have to be seen in the context of China’s resurrection since 2006 of its long-dormant claim to India’s northeastern Arunachal Pradesh state and its recent attempts to question Indian sovereignty over the state of Jammu and Kashmir, one-fifth of which it occupies.

Against that background, China’s increasingly assertive territorial and maritime claims threaten Asian peace and stability. In fact, the largest real estate China covets is not in the South or East China Seas but in India: Arunachal Pradesh is almost three times larger than Taiwan. Respect for boundaries is a prerequisite to peace and stability on any continent. Europe has built its peace on that principle, with a number of European states learning to live with boundaries they do not like.

Efforts to redraw territorial and maritime frontiers are an invitation to endemic conflicts in Asia. Through its overt refusal to accept the territorial status quo, Beijing only highlights the futility of political negotiations.

After all, a major redrawing of frontiers has never happened at the negotiating table in world history. Such redrawing can only be achieved on the battlefield, as Beijing has done in the past.

Today, whether it is Arunachal Pradesh or Taiwan or the Senkaku Islands, or even the Spratlys, China is dangling the threat to use force to assert its claims. In doing so, China has helped reinforce the specter of a China threat. By picking territorial fights with its neighbors, China also is threatening Asia’s continued economic renaissance. More significantly, China is showing that it is not a credible candidate to lead Asia.

It is important for other Asian states and the rest of the international community to convey a clear message to Beijing: After six long decades, China’s redrawing of frontiers must now come to an end.